BBC World ties up with 6 Indian mobile cos

International news broadcaster BBC World has tied up with six mobile service providers in India and will be looking to provide more content to consumers through the medium including news video clips.

"We have BBC World on six mobile platforms in the country and we expect it to grow rapidly," Anne Barnard, Managing Director BBC World, said.

The broadcaster would be looking to deliver video news clips on mobiles soon, she said. BBC also plans to increase news programming on its television channel BBC World News and generate content for video on demand and podcasts as well, Barnard added.

"We aim to grow audiences and revenue through more live news and other programmes," she said. The audience growth is expected to take place across media streams including the internet and mobile telephones, which will provide greater advertising opportunities, Barnard said.

BBC World News has a global weekly television audience of 78 million, an increase of 2 million over last year, while the website presently attracts 29

million people a month, BBC officials said.

The broadcaster, which recently unveiled a new look to the brand with a change in appearance and name from BBC World, had seen a 25

per cent increase in Asian audiences over the last five years, they said.

The online version of the website presently attracts close to 1

million visitors every month and was expected to attract more eyeballs with the introduction of embedded video on it, Vaishali Sharma, Head of marketing and communications for India, said.

"The

embedded clips are the same as the clips shown on the news channel and we expect to provide them on mobile platforms across the country as well," Sharma said. However, BBC has no plan to introduce an India-specific English website anytime soon, she said, adding that the Hindi and Urdu versions of the website were more popular presently.